


needle in the thread (trying to get you out of my head)

by activatingAggro (pigeonfancier)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Flushed Romance | Matesprits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 12:59:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16682068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonfancier/pseuds/activatingAggro
Summary: “Hdijahhh.” Time to try another tactic. You pout at her, biting your lip. “Came all the way here to get,” you say, just short of a whine. “Come with, yeah? Can come back to shady stall later, liao, listen to people, um - pail?” You glance side-long at the farthest curtain.She does, too, wrinkling her nose as she takes it in. “Pile,” she tries, but there’s enough doubt in the word that even she pauses. “.. pile?”“Pail,” you huff. “Listen to shady strangers pale, pile with weird fellows, can do all that on own time. Could do at home, too. Come to my dorm, leh, stay day, have to listen people pailing all time, have special broom just for it. And not dumb, maybe, but not smart as you! Need to go home, study,” you emphasize, “but look this, am out retrieving you, instead.”“I have make-up exams, least. Doesn’t matter if study! Am not here for brains, leh, what they care if dumb? But you all brains. What you got, if you go failing? Will have to leave the program, Hdijah.” You jam your hands in your pockets. “Not good,” you finish up. “Not good at all.”Nanako retrieves her best friend from Lang Kheh's shadiest pale hook-up shop.





	needle in the thread (trying to get you out of my head)

The air is heady with incense and the scent of too many trolls when you duck inside the small building.

This is the one thing you’ll give it: past that doorframe, the ceiling is high enough that your horns don’t go scraping on the rafters. But that’s the only thing. It’s mood lighting as far as the eye can see, little bulbs of red too dull for the empress’s blade bobbing in the darkness, and drawing it all the deeper for their efforts. There’s stalls as far as the eye can see in the plaza, stretching from wall to wall, and the owners eyes glint red as you walk by each.

You hate going into places like this, for a hundred different reasons. There’s too many bodies, for one - it feels like there’s a hundred smells tugging at your nose, sweat, and salt, and  _blood_  all bandying to be heard, the rank smell of too many people in one space barely covered by the candles burning at each stall. Every time someone jostles you, or touches you, it feels like the smell  _lingers,_  just a little more. There’s too many bodies.. and there’s too many people, because it’s all you can do to draw your coat tighter, pull your sleeves longer.

When someone comes close enough that their horns scrape against yours, without even so much as a pardon, you have to grit your teeth not to lash out.

There’s too many people, here. There’s too many smells, and there’s too much noise, washing over you like a gust of the simoom, a thousand little sounds digging into your patience and flaying it raw. There’s just too much of  _everything,_  and you’re scarcely a minute in, but your breath is already trying to catch. You hate coming in here. The red light market of Lang Kheh is one of the worst places on the planet, and you’re not even allowed, anyway - if your instructors knew where you were right now -

They’d slap a nullifier on your hide, just to flay you alive.

But they don’t, and it doesn’t matter how much you hate it, because you’re not here for you. Hdijah loves the market, more than she loves anything else in the entire world, and  _Hdijah_  is the one that forgot the both of you have an exam in the morning.

Luckily, there’s only a handful of stalls she goes to, and at this time of day, only one of them is still open.

Your stomach curls when the stall vendor smiles at you, ears lifting in recognition. “Morning, lah,” he says, pleased. He’s got a rickshaw spot across half his face, bloomed blue with blood colour just short of teal. It’s the sort of thing you shouldn’t care about, not really, and you wouldn’t of, before the academy. But things rub off, no matter how bad you feel about it later. “Back again so soon? Was not expecting -”

“Not here for me, [ABANG.](http://activatingaggro.tumblr.com/post/169998055151/needle-in-the-thread-trying-to-get-you-out-of-my#) Looking for friend.” You don’t bother to smile. He knows you by now, and the last time you’d tried, he’d  _laughed_  at you, asked if you were going to get sick on him.

This time, he just looks at you side-long, like you might. “Here to [CABUT?](http://activatingaggro.tumblr.com/post/169998055151/needle-in-the-thread-trying-to-get-you-out-of-my#)” He scratches his chin. “You know,” he adds, sly, “no need to always come, come, come, run, yeah? Could stay moment. Try wares.”

His stall is one of the largest ones in the market. The shelves reach higher than he can, and he’s not a small man. Even with his horns shaved down to the scalp, he’s bigger than you. (And you’d been so surprised, the first time you’d spotted them.  _Thought only criminals did that,_  you’d whispered to Hdijah, later, and she’d laughed, and laughed, and  _laughed_  until she’d wept from it.)

You make a noise to stop him, but he doesn’t pay you any mind as he scrambles on his step ladder. There’s bottles stacked on the shelves, each labelled in a variant of Standard that you can’t read in this poor lighting, but the one he grabs is small, nearly flourescent. When he drops back down to the counter, he holds it up with a flourish, and it shines in the red light. “Have something for jades,” he says, grinning at you. He’s got flat teeth like a hoofbeast, unnaturally even, and when he sees the way your eyes linger on them, his grin widens.

“Ha! Like them? Had them filed, [MAH JIE.](http://activatingaggro.tumblr.com/post/169998055151/needle-in-the-thread-trying-to-get-you-out-of-my#) Cousin down row.” He leans forward, klacks them together with a sound that makes you flinch. “Could bite right through bone, now,” he says, smug. “You want stall number? Could give discount -”

“Going back now,” you say instead, and dart past him, and behind the curtain to the rest of his stall, ignoring his forlorn  _okay lor_  behind you.

There’s curtains separating each little room of his business. You have to push past three, murmuring apologies and keeping your eyes ahead of you, before you find Hdijah.

She looks different everytime you see her. The only way that you can recognise her, sometimes, is the way that her psionics make your horns itch, like a burr right in their bedrock: her psi is strong enough that it  _aches_  when it latches onto your pan, but the irritation’s a familiar one, by now. She’d told you it was worse for lower castes, once, and you could believe it. There’s a reason you’re the only lowblood who’ll talk to her.

Several reasons.

She’s lying on a bed, a troll half asleep, and sprawled across her. She’s been braiding their hair, fingers tangled in the middle of a weave, and she scarcely looks up when you come in. Then her face brightens, all at once, and she practically jerks. “Nana,” she cries, pleased. “What’re you doing here?”

Tonight, her face’s as jade as your own. Her nose is sleek and broad, her lips full, and her eyes are soft, heavily-lidded, with eyelashes so thick that you can barely see the colour underneath them. She’s pretty, in short, and suddenly you feel awkward and under-dressed, despite the fact she’s in little more than a t-shirt.

You can’t keep your eyes on her face. So you settle them on her horns, instead. They’re curling out tonight, in a big, spiral mess that’d cause her neck to snap, if they were real. You’re not sure if it’s the troll in her lap that’s drawing that image out, or someone else in the building, but..

“Came to get you for exams, leh,” you sniff, “but see was wrong. Fuck files, should have brought  _file._  Someone watching too many vids?”

“i thought they were cute,” she protests, mild. “Look at them. You could hang dangles from them!”

“Could stab eye out with them, yeah?”

“If you want to get  _gory._  I don’t know why you scimitars are always like this. But - ah - come here! Sit down!” She shifts, pats the side of the cushion next to her. You squint at it, and then her. “You might be a little in my lap,” she says, apologetic, “but I’ve still got this room for another two hours. We could get some honey - well, no,  _I_  could get some honey, and you could get some juice - and just talk, this fellow’s not waking up for a few hours, I think -”

You huff, running a hand through your hair. You’d cut it, recently, and the new shortness still bothers you: there’s no strands to work your fingers through, really, just..  _tufts._  “No can do,” you tell her. “Why act so [BLUR,](http://activatingaggro.tumblr.com/post/169998055151/needle-in-the-thread-trying-to-get-you-out-of-my#) girl? Said already, exams. Need to go hive, get some sleep, lor.”

“I’m still going to exams. I’ll be there before first bell, don’t worry -”

“Stinking of honey?” You lean forward, give a sniff. It’s not as bad as you’d expected, but it’s still there: the chemical tang of mind honey, so sweet that it borders on painful. “Will hit you with hose, lor, then put in brig. No good, Hdijah, no good! Who I cheat off of then? Have me copying Tuyuut?”

“Tuyuut barely literate, siao,” you sniff. “Lusus write better than him, eh, each one!”

When she laughs, no matter what she looks like, it’s always the same way: the skin bunches under her eyes, her cheeks push all the way up, and she  _cackles,_  in a ripple that goes all the way from the bottom of her belly up.

“You could manage without me,” she argues, when she’s done. “And don’t be cruel to yourself, Nana, I love you. You know you’re not  _dumb._ ”

Easy for a torrent to say, you nearly sniff, but you hold off. You don’t want to  _fight_  with her, no matter how much the scent in the air’s starting to get to you. You’ve never wanted to fight with Hdijah, not even when it’s so easy to prickle your other program members. It’s just this place. You’ve never liked this many people around! It’s better here, in the markets, then it is in the institute, at least: it doesn’t really matter if people judge you,  _here._  But it’s one thing to know that, and another thing to remember, when there’s a hundred bodies pushing in.

The curtain doesn’t quiet the chatter of the other stalls that much. Or..

“Hdijahhh.” Time to try another tactic. You pout at her, biting your lip. “Came all the way here to get,” you say, just short of a whine. “Come with, yeah? Can come back to shady stall later, liao, listen to people, um - pail?” You glance side-long at the farthest curtain.

She does, too, wrinkling her nose as she takes it in. “Pile,” she tries, but there’s enough doubt in the word that even she pauses. “.. pile?”

“Pail,” you huff. “Listen to shady strangers pale, pile with weird fellows, can do all that on  _own_  time. Could do at home, too. Come to my dorm, leh, stay day, have to listen people pailing  _all time,_  have special broom just for it. And not dumb, maybe, but not smart as you! Need to go home,  _study,_ ” you emphasize, “but look this, am out retrieving you, instead.”

“I have make-up exams, least. Doesn’t matter if study! Am not here for  _brains,_  leh, what they care if dumb? But you all brains. What you got, if you go failing? Will have to leave the program, Hdijah.” You jam your hands in your pockets. “Not good,” you finish up. “Not good at  _all._ ”

You don’t usually have to convince her like this. Usually, she’s not hesitant at  _all_ ; by the time you come to get her, the handfuls of times you’ve had to, she’s been agreeable enough. Hdijah doesn’t want to fail, anymore than you do, even if her reasons run different than yours.

You think. She won’t tell you too much about herself. You don’t even know what she  _looks_  like, under her psi, but that’s fine: sometimes, you’re not sure she does, either.

Usually, you don’t have to convince her.. but she’s hesitating now, looking down at the fellow instead of at you. Her hair’s too short to fall in her face, but the candle on the table nearby is finally banking. The red light flickers on her, deepening the yellow of her face, turning the shadows darker.

“I think,” she says, carding her fingers through their hair, ruining the braid that she’d only half-made, “maybe I  _want_  to leave, Nana.”

She gets dressed readily enough after that. In silence: she doesn’t have much else to say, no matter how much you nudge her. And you try. Her face’s pale, though, and her lips are pinched tight.

By the time the two of you leave the marketplace, her psionics have shifted. She’s back to the way you usually see her: violet-skinned, with rickshaw spots spackling her hide, with the long, tapered features that always make you pause. Her coat resettles on her thinner frame like it was made for it, the fur collar still tucked meticulously under her chin, and you know if you reached out to touch it, your pan would tell you it was real.

It’s not, of course. None of her features are. Her pan tells you what you should see, and yours does all the work of  _fixing_  things until she fits.

But when you take a hold of her hand, you know the way her fingers twine between yours is real. “Hdijah,” you plead, “talk to me.” The air is cleaner out here. The fresh salt breeze feels like a blessing, after nearly an hour inside of the cramped marketplace, and the streets are nearly empty at this time of day. “Why you want to quit?”

Torrents can’t quit. Even  _you_  know that.

She doesn’t answer for the longest time. But it’s a lengthy walk back to where you’d parked the ship. Lang Kheh is a fine enough city, for the area, but.. there’s no point in leaving an IPC vehicle out, this close to the Hanhai, and Port Mina. No one looks fondly on imperial programs out here, not with Temasek looming in the distance like some great squid.

It’s fine. You just have to wait for her answer, and take it in stride.

“Don’t you ever want quadrants, Nana?” is what she finally says, though, and you do pause.

“Me?” You wrinkle your nose at her. “Why we talking about  _me?_ ”

“Because I want them,” she says, and pulls up short, tugging your hand so that you pause with her. Her eyes are very, very violet in the darkness, bright as the moon above. “I want quadrants, and I want a clade, and - and - I don’t want it in, oh, what did you say? A shady  _market stand,_  where I’m listening to people  _pail._ ” Her laugh is strained. “If you think I like that, I’m afraid I have to correct you. It’s  _awful._ ”

Hdijah’s your closest friend in the corps. She’s your only friend, in a lot of ways! You’ve always chafed at getting too near anyone else: you joined to get out of the caverns, not to form some new unit, and the idea that you had to, just because you’d joined, was one you’d fought against. You’d have your battery, someday, but until then, you didn’t need anyone else.

But Hdijah had wormed her way into your affections, through bringing you perfumes, and dropping by with books, and stealing your lunch when you weren’t looking, because she’d sat down at your table when you were gone. And..

It’s striking you that you might be her closest friend, too, if she’s telling you this. Because torrents can’t have quadrants. You barely pay attention to the other branches, but even you know that.

“But you like the work?” You thread your fingers through hers, clasp your other hand on top of hers. It doesn’t matter what temperature she really is. Your brain says that violets are cold, and so that’s what you’re feeling, radiating through the thin leather of her gloves.

“I adore the work,” she says, thin. “But I like people more, Nana. That’s the  _problem._ The proctors can go pail my exambooks, because I can’t -” She takes a shaky breath, runs her tongue over dry lips. “If it’s people or work, I can’t do it. I thought I could, but I  _can’t._ ”

“.. don’t see why you can’t have quadrants, anyway.” You squeeze her hands. “They say you can’t, yeah, I know,” you add, “but - go to markets, all shady, do your thing already. How they gonna know if you do it elsewhere? Say they’re friends!” A beat. “Really close friends! What they gonna say, eh? Can’t have friends?”

“Gonna hide cameras in apartment, prove you pailing? Nah. Creepy! Too creepy.” She’s too serious. You lean in, tipping your head to bump your horns against hers. Or bump them where they should be: you’ve seen her with them short too many times for the illusion to hold, and your horns cut straight through them.

Just like you’d hoped, she laughs.

“They might have better hobbies than that,” she agrees, and your pumpbiscuit does an unhappy little lurch at the way it sounds  _clogged._  “Do you think that’d work? Because you’re not allowed to have quadrants. I don’t think you’re even supposed to  _pail,_  unless it’s their choice.”

“Don’t think they care,” you tell her, firm, and you’re not sure if you’re right, but it’s what she needs to hear. She can’t leave the program, anymore than you can. There’s only one way out, even if your pan skirts every time you try to think about it, and you won’t let her, no matter what it takes. “Just for appearances, yeah? Making a point! Don’t flaunt it, leh, why they bother? Could pail me, could pail proctor, could pail half of campus, long as it not on lawn, or flashing rings, dunno why it matter.”

She blinks at you.

“I mean,” you add, “don’t do that, leh. Unsanitary! For every reason, yeah? Catch diseases, spread diseases - give lawn diseases - no good, no good. Stick to third of campus, pass proctors. Better that way.”

“And you,” she says, tilting her head to the side. She’s got a strange look on her face. “Don’t forget that part.”

“.. um.” Did you mis-step? Maybe you mis-stepped. From the way she’s looking at you, you  _absolutely_  did, and you - oh, this is why you don’t talk to people, on average, you always get it  _wrong._  “Am part of campus, yeah? Just turn of phrase! Could have said lusus, said nah, girl, too gross, too much, but can take it back. Could pail Tuyuut? Don’t pail Tuyuut, too mean, probably bites, leh, but - um - Alsike –”

She tugs her hand free. Your pumpbiscuit gives one big, great  _stutter,_  but then she’s wrapping a hand around the back of your neck, pulling you in, and -

_\- oh._

Okay.

You didn’t mis-step at all.


End file.
